A fuel cell is a device that uses a chemical reaction to produce electricity. A typical fuel cell uses the chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity. In most fuel cells, the only byproduct of the process is water. The fuel cell requires a constant supply of hydrogen, which typically combines with atmospheric oxygen. Because hydrogen is found in the environment only in compound form, it must first be produced.
There are many known methods for producing hydrogen. The simplest is the electrolysis of water; however, this method requires large amounts of electricity and is not economically feasible on an industrial scale. Currently, the predominant method of producing hydrogen on an industrial scale is the catalytic oxidation of hydrocarbons. Although such methods have higher efficiency than the electrolysis of water, they also produce other problems. As one example, a byproduct of processes using hydrocarbons is the production of carbon oxides such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. The toxicity of carbon monoxide requires that it must be removed or subjected to further processing or storage in order to use this conventional method. Carbon monoxide can be transformed into carbon dioxide; however, this is undesirable because of carbon dioxide's role as a “greenhouse” gas is environmentally damaging. As another significant disadvantage, the conventional processing of hydrocarbons into hydrogen takes place at very high temperatures, requiring expensive fuels and other materials. Indeed, the burning of these fuels disadvantageously creates more gaseous carbon compounds. Moreover, the hydrogen fuel produced from hydrocarbons is not completely free of carbon monoxide. This toxic impurity has a deteriorating effect on the membranes used in typical polymer-electrolyte-membrane fuel cells, causing the performance of the fuel cells to degrade over time.
Numerous attempts have been made to produce and utilize hydrogen and oxygen in economically or environmentally friendly ways. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,070,612 to Niederreither discloses a method for storing electrical energy by means of gas batteries, and reversing the electrochemical processes of storage to later provide electrical current as need. The apparatus and methods of Niederreither, however, do not yield hydrogen and oxygen usable outside the system.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,384,619 to Bar-Gadda discloses methods for converting water from steam or vapor form into hydrogen and oxygen by means of conversion into their plasma forms in an electromagnetic field, and then separating and harvesting them. Bar-Gadda requires the maintenance of powerful and expensive plasma fields, however, and produces no reasonable amount of net electrical energy from its cycling. U.S. Pat. No. 4,476,105 to Greenbaum discloses photosynthetic methods for breaking water into hydrogen and oxygen and for utilizing membranes to selectively collect the hydrogen thus produced. Greenbaum requires the careful maintenance of photosynthetic catalysts and sunlight, however, and produces no net electrically.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,162,302 to Hirayama et al discloses methods for decomposing water utilizing metallic oxides to produce sulfuric acid, and then decomposing the sulfuric acid into water, oxygen and sulfur dioxide. Hirayama requires numerous steps and metallic intermediates, however, and produces no net electricity. None of these attempts disclosed in the relevant field combines the production of electricity, hydrogen and oxygen in an economically and environmentally suitable method by yielding virtually no carbon byproducts and no unwanted or unusable chemical species. There is therefore a need for efficient means and methods for doing so.